Word: stalinism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...most overtly political story of In Plain Russian, in fact, is the least successful. "A Circle of Friends" depicts Stalin and his top advisors on the eve of the German invasion in June 1941 as a pack of drooling children barely able to complete a crossword puzzle, let alone manage a nation. Voinovich's farce bludgeons where a lighter hand might better serve Western audiences weaned on Animal Farm's model of anti-Stalinist allegory...
Problems of translation--either from Russian to English, or from a culture that lived under Stalin to one that knows it only by report--retard Voinovich's humor, and thus his point, in the rest of the story...
...believe that part of Brezhnev sincerely sought, if not peace in the Western sense, then surcease from the danger and risks and struggles of a lifetime. When I met him he had gone through the Stalin purges of the '30s (indeed, his first big jump up the ladder took place then), the Second World War, a new wave of purges, the power struggle following the death of Stalin and the intrigue that led to the overthrow of Khrushchev and catapulted Brezhnev to the top. He seemed at once exuberant and spent, eager to prevail but at minimum risk...
...middle-level party official when Kosygin had joined the top group of 20 or so Soviet leaders. On the other hand, Kosygin's capacity for survival may well have derived from the fact that he never aspired to the very summit of power. Successive leaders beginning with Stalin had valued his competence; none had seen him as a potential rival. His actions were not in service to personal ambition. His commitment to duty was vividly illustrated when his wife was fatally ill; Kosygin went ahead with his day's chores, even continuing to stand on Lenin...
...survivor. He had lived through the Stalin period, the Molotov era at the Foreign Ministry, and Khrushchev's roller coaster diplomacy. He had been Foreign Minister since...